Old Provençal

Old Provençal, also known as Occitan, is a Romance language spoken in southern France, Italy and Spain. It is a direct descendant of Latin, and is therefore related to French, Spanish, and Italian. Old Provençal was the language of the troubadours, and is therefore considered the first literary Romance language. The first written evidence of Old Provençal dates back to the 9th century, in the form of glosses (annotations) in Latin manuscripts. By the 12th century, it had become a fully-fledged language, used in a variety of literature, including chansons de geste (epic poems) and love poetry. The golden age of Old Provençal literature was the 12th and 13th centuries, when troubadours such as Bernart de Ventadorn and Guiraut de Bornelh composed their famous works. Old Provençal began to decline in the 14th century, due to the rise of French as the language of literature and the aristocracy. However, it continued to be spoken as a first language in some areas until the 18th century. Today, there are still a few thousand speakers of Occitan in southern France, Italy and Spain.